Stage lighting is increasingly becoming an important part of theatrical productions, such as rock and roll concerts or theater presentations. A modern stage lighting effect uses a computer to choreograph the lighting effects to be initiated and carried out at pre-planned times. The choreographed effect has usually been planned in advance.
The choreographed effect is usually planned between the artist, often the lighting designer, and the console operator. A dry run through the show is conducted while the lighting designer decides what lighting effects are desired at different parts of the show.
The console operator controls the lighting system according to the lighting designer's direction, and by so doing plans the lighting effects that occur at different times during the show. Those lighting effects need to be carried out by the console operator.
The lighting designer will often want to try different effects to see what they look like and how they will fit in. Each attempted effect requires the console operator to arrange the operation of each light in the way that the lighting designer has requested.
For example, the lighting designer may have in mind a certain effect to be carried out in primary colors. If there is a desire to see what certain parts of that effect would look like in pastel colors, the console operator will need to change a number of different sets of lights to pastel colors. The console operator needs to do this as quickly as possible, but each light may need to be seperately controlled.
The present invention recognizes this problem, and devises a system which enables simple button presses on the console to command combinations of effects to facilitate the console operator's chore during this operation. One such feature allows cycling through many different kinds of lighting effects and grouping effects.
Present technology has necessitated that most, if not all, lighting shows be conducted automatically, based on information that has been stored in advance. This has made it difficult to improvise the lighting effect during a lighting show.
According to one aspect of the present invention, a number of stage lights form a show. The stage lights are defined into at least two different maps. Each map includes a set assignment for each of the stage lights. Each map includes at least some of the different stage lights in different sets.
A parameter palette is formed which includes parameters for the different sets. A preferred parameter palette is a color palette. For example, a primary color palette could change all of the lights in set 1 to red, the lights in set 2 to green, and the lights in set 3 to blue. A pastel palette, on the other hand, changes the lights in set 1 to pastel pink, the lights in set 2 to pastel blue, and the lights in set 3 to pastel green. Other different palette sets are also possible. Hence these different sets have different colors associated with the lamps in the set, thereby allowing different combinations of lamps to colors.
When a specific palette is chosen, each color in the palette can be applied to a set in the current map. A particularly preferred technique allows each palette and each map to be changed by a single key press.
Another part of this technique rotates the combinations, i.e., it rotates the different sets through the colors within the palettes. Therefore, the different palettes, which include parameters of predetermined types, can be rotated through the different sets either at random or in an organized fashion to allow the different parameters to be assigned to different sets and to test that effect. The maps, i.e., the associations between the lamps and the groups, can be rotated in a similar way.
Another aspect groups the lamps forming a lighting show into maps. Each map includes an association between the lamps and specific sets. Lamps are in particular sets in particular maps, and can be in different sets in other maps. Each set can be associated with a parameter for that set. One such parameter is the color for the set of lamps. Both maps and parameters can be changed by an association changing device, e.g., a single key press. This allows single key press parameter cycling.
All of these operations are automatically carried out using simple keystrokes to form the different combinations. This hence allows the associations to be carried out in a shorter time. No revenue is derived from this rehearsal time, hence increasing the economic incentive for shortening this time.